An outline of one hundred years' history at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, 1872-1972.

H. D. McLaurin, the first ophthalmic surgeon to St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, was appointed in 1872 and in 1874 he also became physician to the Hospital. The clinic passed to a line of talented, well trained, dedicated but highly individualistic ophthalmologists, but with its division into two and later four, a large ophthalmological department evolved with competitive individualism giving way to cooperative team work. The golden years were probably ten years before and after World War II. Ophthalmology advanced with increasing medical science and technological development, while control slipped from the Sisters of Charity and an Honorary Medical Staff to a salaried service and a ponderous secular bureaucracy. An amazing level of therapeutic and surgical efficiency was reached, but at a cost of reduced spiritual and human values.